The Story Untold

Part 5 - The Discovery

Joel wakes up to a loud knocking at the door. Tommy gets up to answer the door, and they see that it's Shaun. He has a frantic and excited look in his eyes, and he asks Joel and Tommy to follow them. Shaun runs away from the house towards the garage while Tommy and Joel get ready to go. When they get to the garage, the body from last night is cut open down the torso, and the top half of the skull was cut off, exposing the brain. 

Joel looks at Tommy, then the body, then Shaun who is standing like a little kid about to show his mom his science project. "What the hell is this about?"

"I've figured out what's caused it!" Shaun gets even more excited and moves towards the body.

"You mean to tell me that after just a night of lookin' at this thing, you found how it started?" Tommy looks confused, looking between Shaun and Joel for an explanation. 

Shaun moves around the body pointing to different parts as he explains how he found it out. "See, at first I thought that it was something caused from organ failure. But then, after you told me about how their respiratory system still operates, I wanted to take another look at it. I couldn't find anything wrong with their internal organs, other than the change to ingest human flesh. I sat up for most of the night, thinking what could've caused this. Then, I remembered about a type of ant that would be taken over by a fungus that grows on the ant's brain. The fungus kills the brain, but keeps the rest of the body alive, then takes control of the ant, making it more aggressive and cannibalistic. I cut open the head, and..." Shaun waves his hand towards the brain, gesturing that Joel and Tommy go take a look. 

They lean over the brain, and notice small patches of a dirty yellow across the brain. The brain itself is a dark red, almost black. Joel leans in closer to get a better look, then steps back and looks at Shaun. "What's wrong with it?"

Shaun crosses his arms and leans on a table against the wall. "The brain? Or the patches?"

Tommy looks over at Shaun and stands next to Joel. "How about both?"

Shaun stands up and moves towards the brothers. As he does so, he pulls his sleeves down his arms. "Well, the color of the brain is caused by the patches. The brain's dead. Which is why it's that color. The tissue is a lot thinner than it normally is, and you're able to see the blood easier. Now, the brain was killed by the patches. And those patches are a mutated fungus. It's not radiated mutation, though. Decades, maybe even centuries ago, someone must have accidentally brought back the ant fungus I talked about earlier. It mutated and evolved to survive in different parts of the country and world, and then evolved more to become effective on humans."

Joel and Tommy stand in silence for a moment, staring at Shaun. Neither of them know how to respond to this discovery. 

"Now, this is all just an educated guess. But I'm highly certain that this was the cause of the infection." Shaun turns away and pulls up his sleeves to wash off the tools he used for the dissection. As he's washing the tools, he continues his explanation. "Now, there are ways to kill off the ant fungus. However, this fungus has mutated and evolved, and it was just recently discovered. We don't even have a way to contact the CDC or some other government company to research it and come up with a cure. If I'm being honest, things are just gonna get worse and worse. Some people believe that the military is working on something, but the military's almost been wiped out. I used to be a doctor in the Marines, and I kept in touch with some guys from my unit after I left. They say that most people left the military after last night, to protect their families and friends. Only a handful stayed, and they're too busy with the major cities. There's too much going on for them to handle it."

Joel looks over at Tommy and sighs. "So, we're on our own, huh?"

Shaun finishes the tools and turns around to face Joel and Tommy. "Not quite. Let's go introduce you to everybody."